Forty-five minutes! Lord, what else are we going to talk about for that long? The thought of it almost made me sick. I didn’t know how much longer I could do this. “So are you working on anything else right now?” Inwardly I gave myself a pat on the back for thinking of that; I’d read in a Cosmo article once that guys loved talking about themselves. It was probably doubly true for celebrities.

He started talking about some action movie, Nine Lives, and then mentioned a banquet for an organization he volunteered with.

Without thinking, I made a sympathetic face and nodded. “Oh, the Hollywood AIDS thing, that’s right.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “You knew that, eh?”

“Oh … well, I saw this really old issue of People the other day with a photo of you giving some high-school boy an award—HAP or something.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. I remember that.”

I watched his face carefully, looking for signs that I’d crossed into a touchy subject. “What does HAP stand for?”

“It’s the Hollywood AIDS Project. Great organization. It’s good to know my time is well spent there. Acting is fun; I love movies and television and … I don’t know, all of it. But it’s not going to change the world. Working with FLAP makes me feel like I’m doing something worthwhile with myself.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I nodded in agreement and sipped my Sprite, hoping he’d keep the conversation moving. I was afraid to ask anything else about the organization; I didn’t know where the line between innocent curiosity and delving into personal territory was. When he failed to keep talking, I resolved not to say anything until he did and busied myself with the view out the tinted windows. We’d slowed again. The next exit sign was for the 101 freeway, which told me nothing since I’d never been up here before. I wondered how much farther we had to go. I hadn’t worn a watch, and there were no clocks in the back of the limo, so I was completely clueless. It made me nervous not knowing the time.